


Ode to Joy: or, michael distortion's guide to naming yourself

by MisasBiggestFan



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Nonbinary Character, Other, and about gerry coming to terms with and supporting the changes in his partner, and promptly fends it off with voidpunk, but michael DOES face some internalized transphobia, hashtag identity is a prison, he/him and it/its for human michael AND spiral michael, its also most importantly ILLUSTRATED!!! by dianthus-a an INCREDIBLE artist, nonbinary author, nonbinary michael, this fic is MUSICAL!! which is more fun than it sounds i promise, this fic is largely abt the stress of questioning and coming out as a trans person, trust me folks youre RLY in for a treat w this art
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:41:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24005257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisasBiggestFan/pseuds/MisasBiggestFan
Summary: Michael Shelley is sacrificed to the Spiral before he has the chance to come out, even to himself. Now, as an avatar of the Spiral, his identity is even MORE painful and confusing to identify. Alone and filled with pain he doesn't even know how to name, he searches for acceptance in the one person who ever really knew him-Gerry Keay.***“What do you want to be called then,” Gerry says and wraps his arms around Michael’s back.This conversation hurts. This question hurts. Everything hurts, so long as no one knows about his gender, so long as he has to go on being someone he’s not, someone he just can’t be anymore. He doesn’t know how much longer he can stand it.“I dunnooooo,” he says, grinning, but inside he knows his name isn’t Michael. It’s just not. He doesn’t have a name. He never has. And it’s absence is like a hole in his chest.The creature that might as well be called Michael, it supposes, if you have to call it anything, thinks about this conversation while it sits on the ceiling of its hallway and slowly digs grooves into the plaster with its fingers.Gerry, it thinks desperately. I have to find Gerry.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael, Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley
Comments: 72
Kudos: 244
Collections: Gerrymichael Big Bang 2020





	Ode to Joy: or, michael distortion's guide to naming yourself

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is MUSICAL, which i hope is just as much fun for everyone else as it is for me. I thought it might add to the atmosphere if I put together something of a playlist? So at points where music plays, I've included embedded links. If you click them, they'll take you to a yt video of the song that's playing at the time so you can listen and read!  
> But REMEMBER to right click OPEN IN A NEW TAB bc ao3 doesn't give me the option to make it automatic.
> 
> see below for some SICK art by a RAD tma artist who everyone loves, @dianthus-a!!!!!

(illustration above courtesy of @dianthus-a! [click here to reblog this art on tumblr!)](https://dianthus-a.tumblr.com/post/617300083095027712/heres-my-part-for)

Human Michael Shelley wants to tell Gerry something, something important, but he knows he can’t do it unless he’s absolutely on the floor drunk, so he invites Gerry over that night and puts on the tv and buys pizza and at least three bottles of wine and goes to town. Wine, he thinks, will be his liquid courage.

But it's okay too because if Gerry reacts funny, Michael can just blame it all on the drinks in the morning. And if it goes badly, maybe Gerry won’t even remember once the hangover wears off of both of them the next day. Really, it’s a foolproof plan. A safety net a mile wide. But somehow, Michael still has to force himself to bring his glass to his mouth-his stomach roils against it with the nerves.

After a few hours, they’re both pretty out of it and the words have been on Michael’s tongue for the whole day, on it’s heart for years, and they’re too heavy and they spill out of it when it leans it’s head on Gerry’s shoulder and giggles for a full two minutes.

“Gerry-” it manages through the giggle fit. (Sometimes he calls himself ‘it’ in his head. Only sometimes. Only when it feels better that way.) Gerry is playing with Michael’s curls. “Gerry-”

“Yes, dear,” Gerry says. His cheeks are red and he’s smiling. He can’t help but laugh when Michael does. Gerry says it’s laughs are infectious, which is bad news because Michael laughs like it was his last day on earth. He laughs when he’s happy and when he’s shocked and when he’s nervous and when he’s afraid. It means Gerry laughs a lot too, which is nice. Gerry says Michael makes him smile and Michael knows that’s not something he’s had much of an excuse to do throughout his life.

“I have something to tell you,” Michael says and it’s stomach twists and it laughs again, louder, panicked.

“Oh?” Gerry says. He’s still smiling. A pale curl is twisted around one of his fingers. Michael is practically in his lap.

“Every time someone says my name to me, I wish I could just die,” Michael Shelley says and the statement is so raw-it’s emotion made physical and it’s sick with it and it laughs frantically. Gerry’s smile drops slowly, uncertainly. His laugh drains away awkwardly, like he’s following Michael’s lead but becoming uncertain about whether or not he should be.

“What?” He finally says.

Michael nuzzles into his neck, unwilling to go on now that the emotion is out there. This was a mistake, it thinks through the haze of the wine in it’s blood. But at least it’s _out_ now.

Gerry pulls him away gently and although Michael is just barely fielding off another giggle attack, there’s fear in it’s eyes. The silence in the room between his breaths is suddenly too much.

“Hon, what?” Gerry says. He sounds bewildered. “Do you, haha, are you, uh, saying. You feel suicidal?”

“No, no,” Michael avoids his eyes and instead starts playing with Gerry’s hand, smoothing a finger over the veins on the back. He’s still smiling. It’s his only defense right now. “No, nothing like that.”

“Well, can you-” Gerry is sputtering. “Can you, uh, elaborate a little? Dear?”

“It’s nooooothing,” Michael says, dragging out the ‘uh’ sound for a long time. “It’s just. Just what I said. I hate when people say my name.”

“How does it make you feel.”

“Like I want to… Tear down the walls. Like there’s… A knife sticking out of my gut and everyone comes up and turns it. Mmm,” Michael hums just for the excuse to start giggling again, to look cavalier. He’s not exactly a man either, and not exactly a woman, but it doesn’t know how to add that to the conversation, doesn’t know how to broach it. It can’t climb that mountain yet.

Gerry is studying his face somberly.

“Well maybe we oughta call you something different then, right, babe?”

“Maybeeeeee,” Michael leans back into Gerry and crawls up fully on his lap now, curled up even though he doesn’t quite fit (he’s always been all limbs) and presses his face into Gerry’s neck and breathes in.

“What do you want to be called then,” Gerry says and wraps his arms around Michael’s back.

This conversation hurts. This question hurts. Everything hurts, so long as no one knows about his gender, so long as he has to go on being someone he’s not, someone he just can’t be anymore. He doesn’t know how much longer he can stand it.

“I dunnooooo,” he says, grinning, but inside he knows his name isn’t Michael. It’s just not. He doesn’t _have_ a name. He never has. And it’s absence is like a hole in his chest.

The creature that might as well be called Michael, it supposes, if you have to call it anything, thinks about this conversation while it sits on the ceiling of its hallway and slowly digs grooves into the plaster with its fingers.

Gerry, it thinks desperately. I have to find Gerry.

  
  


In the real world, it’s been a week and a half since Gertrude put Michael Shelley in a door-shaped blender that chopped him all up inside and sewed him back all wrong, but to the creature that Michael is now, well, it’s lost track of time. It feels like hours, or minutes, or years have passed. It can’t keep track from moment to moment.

It took Michael Shelley a full week to be digested by the Spiral, a full week for him to give up and let himself be changed, and half a week for it to gather itself enough to be able to stand up and walk outside of that door again. And now, it does.

It doesn’t know how any of this works. It thinks, briefly, that it should. Every other monster it ever came in contact with in the past seemed to know so much, seemed to be so comfortable, but it can barely stand without falling to pieces-literal pieces-and making sounds that might be weeping. It doesn’t feel lost inside the hallways anymore, of course not, and it’s learning about the Spiral through instinct-like yanks in it’s gut that lead it to open the door and just _know_ where it’ll open up to (hint: not sannikov land), but everything is still all so new. It’s still so afraid and it thought it might have lost that feeling at some point during the twisting process, but somehow, it did not.

Of course, it can remember things Michael Shelley couldn’t. It knows the thoughts and feelings and actions of past victims, past avatars, some sort of generational hive mind. (The alien identities flood Michael Shelley. He is lost in the rush, like a riptide. He is confused. He is in pain.) It knows the Spiral in the way they all knew it, but it still finds itself undereducated in the art of being the distortion. It’s clumsy. It’s like riding a bike, the identities inside it tell it. And it knew how to ride this bike once, but getting back behind the handle bars is proving harder than anticipated. It’s riding this bike again with new hands and new eyes and a new, broken heart.

It opens the door. It takes a lot of concentration to keep its hands hand-shaped and to keep its face face-shaped and to keep its body not only body-shaped, but also solid and made of things like skin and guts. If it gets distracted for even a minute, and it gets distracted a LOT, it dissolves from something person-looking into something more like what a modern artist would call person-looking. It has to keep this up, if not for itself, at least for Gerry.

It steps out of the door and directly into the hallway of Gerry’s apartment complex. In front of him is another door, door 213-Gerry’s.

If it were to catch a glimpse of itself in a mirror right now, it would realize it looks exactly like Michael Shelley, if not a little frazzled (if not at least a foot taller). It doesn’t feel like that on the inside, so this would come as a shock.

It throws itself at the door and knocks.

Oh, no, wait. The knocking sound is wrong, it didn’t sound like knocking, it sounded like rubber duck squeaks. Try again, try again. It raises its fist. Bone. Bone, skin, blood, okay? It hits the door with it’s fist. KNOCK. Good, okay, that was a knock, that’s good. One more. SQUACK. That one was a duck sound, okay, alright, we can work on this. One more try-

Michael is staring down at it’s hand, focusing as hard as it can, when the door opens. Gerry has already seen him through the peephole and when he opens the door now, his face is flushed and he’s got one hand cupped around his mouth and there are tears in his eyes. He stands there for a second and he and Michael look at each other and then Gerry steps forward and throws his arms around Michael.

Michael was always taller than Gerry, but now he’s _really_ taller than Gerry, so it’s a little different, but the smell of him, the warmth of his arms, seeing his face, it’s all so familiar and normal and _sane_ that Michael melts in a second. He’s trying to focus on making his body a body so Gerry doesn’t notice, but it’s probably already too late and he wraps his arms around Gerry in response and rests his forehead on top of Gerry’s hair and tries not to cry. They stand there for a minute and Michael thinks he could stand there with Gerry forever, the familiarity making him want to melt into a puddle, when Gerry makes a sound. He makes a ‘yelch’ kind of sound and pulls back and he’s holding his arms out in front of him. They’re dripping in something. Uh oh. Gerry steps back, dripping all over the floor, and then hesitantly brings one of his hands to his face. He sniffs and then looks back up at Michael.

“Is this… Ice cream?” He says, bewildered.

Now that he mentions it, Michael is sure, it totally is. It looks down at its feet. It’s dripped a puddle of melted vanilla bean ice cream all over the rug on the carpet.

Gerry washes his arms off in the sink in the kitchen and Michael stands in the corner and watches. It’s tall enough now that one of the hanging lamps nearly brushes it’s head. Gerry hasn’t taken his eyes off of Michael. His eyes look… Afraid? But hopeful. But sad. But confused. But hesitant. His eyes are swollen and red. So whatever that means.

“She told me you died,” he finally says when he shuts the water off.

Michael fights to not dissolve into something bizarre.

“Well?” Gerry says.

“Wellllll,” Michael says back softly. It’s the first thing, other than horrified screaming, that it’s said in a week.

“Will you tell me why Gertrude said you died and why you’re-” He stops here, unsure how to explain it, but the way his eyes travel up Michael’s body is explanation enough.

Michael doesn’t know what to say, to be honest. It’s not even Michael, not really, it’s so many more things than just him, so it shouldn’t be here, loving the things Michael loved, finding comfort in the things he found comfort in.

“I think…” Michael says. It’s searching for the words, speaking slowly. “I don’t know what to say.”

Gerry folds his arms and leans against the kitchen counter.

“Well, uh,” he says. He was always endlessly patient. “You could start at the beginning. Your trip, with Gertrude. Where did you go?”

Michael takes a step back and it’s face goes hard once the shock of the blow wears off, the blow of being reminded of something painful. In front of its eyes, everything flashes red for a few seconds, like an injured character in a video game, and Gerry must see this somehow too because his eyebrows shoot up. Did everything go red for him too?

“Why don’t,” it says as quietly as it can muster. “You tell me. What you _think_ happened.”

It’s not meant to sound like a threat, but it comes out that way and the blood drains from Gerry’s face.

They’re quiet for a minute and then Gerry chokes out, “I don’t want to do that.”

Suddenly, it’s very important that Gerry does it. An angry smile splits Michael’s face, an expression that contradicts how it’s feeling. (How _is_ it feeling? Nevermind. It doesn’t know.)

“I think you do,” it says.

Gerry looks down and his bottom lip is trembling hard. Michael doesn’t want to cause him pain, but it’s so nice to see that whatever is left inside him that was human is missed.

“I think she took you to it,” Gerry chokes out. He grips the edge of the kitchen counter. “And fed you to it.”

For a minute, Michael wants to scream. It wants to tear the whole apartment to pieces. It wants to scream ‘where were you?! Where were you when I was dying-when he was dying?!’ But it doesn’t. It’s angry inside, and all sorts of emotions it can’t even name, but it doesn’t lash out just yet. It didn’t come here to lash out. It came here to… Well, why did it come here?

“I came here,” Michael says. He thinks as he’s speaking that he gets taller. He’s starting to lose his grip on looking like a person. If he were to look down at his hands, all he’d probably see were blurry lines, blocks of color. A museum piece that hasn’t quite found itself yet. “To tell you. That Michael Shelley is dead.”

Gerry snivels miserably and Michael looks up from it’s hands (so it _was_ looking at its hands. And it _does_ look like a museum piece.) to see that he is suddenly weeping openly. Tears are running down his face without an end in sight and his entire face is beet red. He’s gripping the kitchen counter like it’s all that’s holding him up. It’s unusual to see Gerry like this-strong, collected, tough as nails Gerry.

“Please don’t say that, Michael,” he manages through hiccuping sobs. He’s not even bothering to wipe his face, despite the fact that there’s no way he can even see, as teary as he is. “Don’t-don’t look at me and say that-you’re alive, you’re right here, we can get through this.”

Michael drops its grip on its body in one fell swoop and if it were to catch a glimpse of itself in a mirror right now, it would realize it looks absolutely nothing like Michael Shelley. It feels like Michael on the inside, so this would come as a shock. 

When Michael lets go, Gerry gasps, and then gags, and then clutches the counter with both hands and has to look away, and then dry heaves dizzily into the sink. All of a sudden the world is spinning around them and Gerry looks like he thinks that if he lets go of the counter, he might just fly away.

“S-stop it,” Gerry groans and retches emptily again. “Michael, make it stop.” He’s full body shuddering right now.

“I’m not Michael Shelley,” Michael says again slowly and enunciates it til each syllable cuts. It doesn’t raise its voice, it just sharpens it, like a knife on a rock. He’s always been that way. “Michael Shelley is dead.”

Gerry vomits for real this time in response and then collapses onto the floor and grasps at the linoleum tile, desperate to fight the dizziness. It’s not because of the spinning, the dizziness. It’s because of Michael. Michael’s heart aches inside it. 

When it arrived here, the normalcy and rightness of seeing Gerry again had been a comfort, but now it’s grating on Michael, like it’s sitting in a room too bright with eyes that won’t adjust, or enduring a migraine with no end in sight. One of those small pains that builds until you can’t stand it anymore. It’s all Michael can do to keep from twisting Gerry’s entire apartment into something nightmarish, somewhere it will be comfortable. It’s already doing it, it realizes, without even wanting. The apartment takes another spinning lurch.

“Please-” Gerry groans but before he can finish, Michael throws open a door behind him and vanishes into the hall.

  
  


Next order of business should be the 10 fold impalement of one Gertrude Robinson, but every time it tries to open that door, it can’t bring itself, so it just rages inside the hallway alone instead. It boils in it’s emotions, and then boils some more about the fact that it has to feel it at all.

  
  


The next time it goes back to Gerry is after it takes the first person into its hall and locks the door.

It can feel Sandra Dalton in it’s corridors. She’s slapping the walls right now and screaming and she’s gonna go hoarse soon. In a few days, she’ll be dead, and it feels _so_ so good and this is exactly why it is not Michael Shelley. Something cheered inside it when it took her, something that had been chanting ‘eat eat eat’ to the distortion for days now. Taking her was just like riding a bike. It had been there before.

It finds Gerry on the street. He’s walking somewhere and Michael walks right out of an alley and joins him. It’s not quite got a body this time. It looks like Michael Shelley 100% except here’s the catch-it only looks that way when Gerry is looking. It’s like a video game, like the matrix-it will cease to be when he looks away. It feels very clever for coming up with this. Gerry will look at it head-on and see Michael, a person, but just on the other side, Michael is spinning in endless, dizzying, delicious fractals. This whole person thing is a cardboard cut out it will put on in front of its face, so that Gerry doesn’t puke again looking at him. (If other people see it and puke, well, Michael just doesn’t care. What are they gonna do, sue it?)

Gerry starts when he notices it and then quickly looks away again, like he remembers how the last time he looked at Michael, he got sick, but he doesn’t seem to notice anything else off. His spine stiffens, but at least he doesn’t say, ‘hey now, this whole person thing is an act! Just past my eyes, you are falling apart and coming together and undoing and remaking!’

“Michael,” he says instead. Now _it’s_ spine stiffens.

“That _is_ a name,” it says, almost miffed.

“How are you,” Gerry says, very gently, the verbal equivalent of the softest kiss. The yearning in his voice is palpable.

“And that is a question,” Michael muses. “ _How_ am I? Well, I’m not quite in a way that you would be capable of understanding.”

“I want to ask if you’re still you,” Gerry says and lets out a weak laugh. “But-”

“But you know the answer,” it says.

“Guess so.”

They walk together in silence for a few blocks. Michael comes to realize that Gerry is just walking in circles. He doesn’t have a destination. He’s just… Walking. And now Michael is walking with him. Michael is getting bored. It wants to break something. Inside it, Sandra Dalton is weeping. She thinks she’s losing it. She is. It giggles a little thinking about it. It’s already squashed down any sadness it would have felt over this. It would only be sad if it was Michael Shelley, which it’s not. Michael Shelley would feel awful. Michael Shelley would tear himself to pieces over this. But the distortion _needs_ this and it doesn’t have _time_ for Michael Shelley to cry over it, and it’s not Michael Shelley, so it can take what it wants and not feel bad. That’s what’s great about not being Michael Shelley. Michael Shelley would feel remorse. And fear. And disgust. But the distortion doesn’t have to feel any of that. It’s a monster, and that’s just how it is, and that’s great!

“So who are you then,” Gerry says. His eyes are trained on the ground. The distortion remembers what it felt like to have his hands in it’s hair. Oh great, now _it’s_ yearning too. We’re all just going to yearn today, is that it, it thinks. In its mouth, it’s tongue turns into flower petals and when they pass a flower bed on the side of the city street, it tries to discreetly spit them out in the flower’s general direction.

“It is not what it is,” it finally says when it’s mouth has been emptied of flowers. It pulls another petal out from the back of it’s throat and gags on it a little. Gerry looks over and watches it drag a gooey rose petal out of its mouth and unceremoniously abandon it in a trash can as they walk past. Gerry doesn’t seem to know what to make of any of this.

“Sorry?” He says and the distortion speaks up a little louder.

“It is not what it is,” it says but it’s voice trails away again quietly.

“... Kay,” Gerry says but he’s clearly confused.

They walk a little way longer and then Gerard says, “What do you want your name to be.”

Michael thinks back to the conversation on the couch, Gerry’s fingers in it’s hair-his hair. Michael’s, not the distortions. The way it felt to have his arms around it. It never had the chance to decide back then. It was a big decision, after all. I just don’t _have_ a name Gerry, it thought impatiently. That’s not _new_! Get with the program! 

They turned another corner and behind it, the distortion leaves a trail of pink footprints. Why? It doesn’t know. Why not? Is it wearing shoes? It doesn’t remember. It laughs a little at the thought and then remembers that they’re going somewhere, right? Or no, no, he wasn’t, Gerry wasn’t going anywhere. He was just having a walk. A nice, long depression walk after the death of his sweet boyfriend Michael Shelley, probably. Aww. How nice to be missed.

“Where are you _going_ , Gerard Keay?” The distortion says and giggles a little and cranes it’s neck to look at Gerry as best it can. Gerry makes face.

“Don’t avoid the question,” he says.

“What question?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Don’t remember what?”

It’s _not_ wearing shoes! That’s it, that’s what it forgot. It looks down. It’s footprints behind it are twisting into cute little circles. It’s starting to really love the little circles it sees everywhere. Twisting things just feels so… Nice. Gerry doesn’t leave footprints.

“I asked you a question!” Gerry says. “I said what do you want your name to be.”

OH, THAT question!! Now it remembers. It laughs. How silly of it to forget! It’s hard to keep track of things sometimes.

“It’s hard to keep track of things sometimes,” it says and then prides itself on a good answer that makes sense but Gerry doesn’t seem to think it makes sense. He shakes his head angrily, looking bitter and his eyes are going red again, like they did in the kitchen when he began to cry like he’d just seen his beloved boyfriend back from the dead after a solid week and a half of mourning. I’m _right here,_ Michael thinks and giggles to himself again. Silly Gerard, crying over someone who’s _alive_. He laughs again. 

“I’ve been thinking,” Gerry chokes out. Michael is grateful that he lets it’s unsatisfactory answer slide. “About. You. And what avatars. You know. Do.”

Sandra Dalton is peeling off the wallpaper and laughing hysterically. 

“Have you now?” Michael says and can’t help but laugh. For a long time.

“It’s what makes someone an avatar. In the end. I think,” Gerry continues. “Hurting people.”

“Gerry!” Michael says because it doesn’t know what else to say. It’s smiling, but that doesn’t mean anything-it’s always smiling. 

“Have you done it yet. Please just tell me the truth, I don’t care, just tell me.”

“I _told_ you that Michael Shelley was dead,” Michael says.

Gerry is quiet for a minute and then he finally says, “kay.”

“Dead, dead, dead,” Michael sings. “As a doornail. Oo!! Haha! Get it? A doornail??” He feels like black tar on the inside. 99% of him wants to be dead in this moment. (The other percent is confused about what’s going on, but if it knew, it’d join the rest.)

Gerry turns another corner fast and Michael has to turn on heel to keep up. Gerry’s walking faster-he’s _been_ walking faster, it realizes. Is he trying to ditch Michael? Well, good luck with that-Michael’s got like, Gerry’s entire height just in legs.

“Where are you going?” Michael asks again.

“Just-around,” Gerry says and he rubs at his face and Michael realizes he _is_ crying again, but he’s trying to stifle it, unlike the kitchen experience.

“Aww, Gerry,” Michael says. Sympathy floods it and it can feel itself melting again. It hurriedly mops itself up and then it steps in front of Gerry and Gerry runs directly into it. 

“Hey!” Gerry says. Michael leans down to look into his face and they stare at each other for a long time there in the street. People pass them. Michael’s cute swirly footsteps disintegrate eventually.

When Gerry finally breaks the stare and looks away, Michael does his best to make his hands _real_ , more than just the cardboard mask, and then he reaches over and takes Gerry’s face and wipes off the wetness with his thumbs.

Gerry is holding his breath, likely avoiding another breakdown.

“I love you,” Michael says because it means it.

Gerry doesn’t seem to know what to say. He turns his face away from Michael’s hands.

“Gerry, let me tell you something,” it says very gently. It tries to follow his eyes, but Gerry won’t look at him anymore. It wants to make this better, it needs to make this better. “Listen to me. Please come into the door with me. My door.” 

Gerry bristles and Michael doesn’t miss the spike of fear in his expression.

“No, listen, Gerry,” Michael tries to salvage this. “I don’t mean-I’m not-I don’t want to _hurt_ you. Its just, you don’t understand. It’s so nice in there. It’s so… Cozy. I can make it cozy for you, Gerry. I can give you all sorts of things in there, I really can.” How else can Michael apologize for what it is now. How else can it make it up to Gerry.

Gerry is trying to turn away. Michael follows him, desperate. It’s hands skirt Gerry’s face and his hair and his shoulders. “You’re not listening, look, I know it sounds bad, but I want you there! And I’d take care of you! Not forever, Gerry-Gerry, look at me, not forever! Just for an hour. Two hours. I promise. We can even bring a watch and I won’t mess with it-Gerry!”

Gerry sucks in a breath and he looks so heartbroken and he pushes Michael away, Michael who is still pleading, and he turns around one last time and walks in the opposite direction as fast as he can, his hands on his face.

Michael lets himself be abandoned on the street and stands there until he can’t take it anymore and then he throws himself through the nearest yellow door and slams it behind him and hides there.

  
  
  
  
  


“You don’t understand,” Gerry is saying over the phone and he sounds mad. The distortion hangs back and listens through the door. 

It’s behind it’s yellow door, situated in the back of Gerry’s closet. The closet door is open and the yellow door behind it is open only a sliver, and hidden behind racks of black trenchcoats and pants with chains on them and you know, other cute goth things Gerry collects. It’s sitting on the ground of it’s hall, it’s face pressed to the door, listening intently, leaning it’s head on wood that doesn’t feel like wood.

Michael had been meaning to walk in and sit with Gerry and just give him a good long stare for a while, just take him in, just sit with him, just exist near him, but hearing Gerry on the phone had stopped it. Because Gerry is talking about _it_. 

“He’s-he’s… So much about him is the same. He’s _him_ . He’s himself. But he’s… Confused. I mean not just about the name thing but like, but _everything_ . I’ll say something and he’ll sit there with the most befuddled look on his face, like he doesn’t know what he’s looking at. And he talks like he’s a hundred miles away.” Gerry’s crying now but he still sounds enraged. “He can barely maintain a conversation!! Are you hearing this!! I’ll say something or ask him a question or-or, and, and he’ll… He’ll answer like we were having an entirely different conversation! Like he has a hundred different conversations in his head and then just drops in whatever response he happens to land on, I can’t barely follow! It’s not his fault, I won’t believe this is his fault, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He wouldn’t do, he wouldn’t-wouldn’t hurt-he doesn’t know what he’s DOING! He’s _Michael_ , he’s my _boyfriend_ , he’s just in pain, Gertrude!”

The distortion falls back like it was hit. _Gertrude_. Gerry is talking to Gertrude.

The distortion pushes open the door and then wades through Gerry’s clothes, flinging most of them on the ground, and bursts out of the closet. Gerry yelps in surprise and the distortion snatches the phone out of his hand and then pulls back with it’s free hand hard and drives all of it’s long, pointed fingers into the screen of Gerry’s phone. It cracks and sizzles and then Michael spreads it’s fingers enough to turn the entire thing into ripped chunks of metal and shattered glass and then it drops the mess on the ground, sparking and sizzling.

Gerard is standing there frozen, his hand still at his face like he hadn't moved since Michael snatched the phone. His mouth is open in shock.

There’s a second of hesitation and then Michael realizes that it might have overreacted.

It remembers what Gerry said, that the distortion can’t keep up a conversation, and fights to say something normal, something that will make sense to Gerry right now, something that’s not been twisted in his mind or turned into a lie. It’s always the distortion’s first instinct to lie it’s ass off, but it tries for Gerry. It makes an effort for him.

“I am so, so afraid of her,” it breathes.

Gerry stares until the distortion becomes too aware of itself, awkward and exposed after this raw truth, and it leans down and scoops up the wreckage of his phone in its hands. It kneels down on the ground with them and tries to put them back together.

“I’m sorry,” it says very quietly. “I think, I think I can fix it.” It tries to cram the metal pieces back together. It’s vision is swirling and it doesn’t know if it’s normal spiral swirling or just the tears that are gathering in its eyes.

Gerry is on his knees on the ground next to it and he takes the phone pieces out of its hands, careful not to touch it, careful not to cut himself, and he takes the pieces and dumps them on his bedside table.

“I don’t want you to fix it,” he says.

“I’ll buy you a new one,” the distortion says. It has Michael Shelley’s bank account, sitting unused now that the distortion doesn’t really need an apartment. Or, you know, food, or like, taxes or anything. Or like a job. Plus it has a wallet from the pocket of someone it put in it’s hall. You know, a wallet or two. Or three. Look, the point is, it can afford a new phone for Gerard Keay, the point is not how many people it’s eaten, that’s not the point. That’s irrelevant here. Please focus on something else besides how many ownerless wallets the distortion that used to be Michael Shelley has collected.

Gerry considers this for a second (the offer of a new phone, not, you know, the wallet collection) and finally seems to come to a conclusion.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “You know what. You owe it to me.”

At the store, Gerry and Michael browse smartphones. Michael makes staticy rainbows swirl through the screens it touches, mostly on accident, and can’t quite seem to get any of the phones to work for it, but Gerry’s not having such a hard time. They flit between aisles together, taking selfies on the tester phones like they were high schoolers and comparing features lazily. Enjoying each other’s company. Michael is cherishing the casual normalcy of Gerry, of being around him, of spending such a normal afternoon together, like nothing bad or scary had ever happened to either of them. 

When Gerry finally picks one (and even lets Michael talk him into a matching glittery phone case), Michael takes it up to the counter and they make their way through the new phone plan jargon-well, Gerry makes his way through it, Michael is too confused to understand. And then, when it’s time to pay for the phone and make it up to Gerry, Michael reaches into the pocket of it’s coat and pulls out a wallet and takes a credit card out of it. It knows the drill, it’s moving to plug the chip into the machine, when Gerry stops it.

“What is this,” Gerry says, plucking the credit card from the distortion’s hands. On the card, it doesn’t say ‘Michael Shelley’. It says ‘Gordon A Wallace’. Dammit, the distortion thinks. Confused again. It could have sworn it had the right card.

“That’s my credit card,” the distortion says.

“So your new name is Gordon A Wallace now, huh?”

The distortion snatches the card back.

“Ew, no,” it says. “I would never choose so unsexy a name.”

“Where did you get that credit card, Michael.”

“Gerard Keay, I am giving you a _gift_ , you should be more graceful about it.”

Gerry’s face hardens.

“Where. Did you get the card. Michael.”

The distortion waffles. It can lie, fuck, of _course_ it can lie, don’t think it doesn’t consider a good lie with every word that comes out of it’s mouth. But like, it doesn’t always lie _convincingly_. It’s not the Web! It just… Lies. That’s all.

“I steal credit cards now,” it says and looks away from Gerry and swipes Gordon A Wallace’s card into the machine. The machine beeps and a receipt prints. The cashier is a little redfaced after hearing the distortion admit that it stole this credit card, but doesn’t seem to know what to do about it.

“Is that so,” Gerry says.

“Yeah,” the distortion says. It pockets the card and accepts the packaged phone from the confused cashier. The distortion strides away from the counter now and Gerry follows. “Identities too. Like social security cards. It’s my new hobby. Keeps me busy. Gives me something to do.”

Gerry is quiet.

“I probably have about a zillion stolen identities now that I can just swap out whenever I want,” the distortion continues because it’s important to continue. Details make a lie. And because Michael Shelley found it very easy to ramble when he was afraid. “It’s very convenient, especially because I already lost my original, so it’s nice to have some backups lying around.”

When Michael unveils the new smartphone to Gerry outside the store in the car and beams at him (with too many teeth, probably), Gerry doesn’t seem to put his whole heart into the receival. 

But he drops the credit card thing.

  
  
  
  
  


“Hey Michael,” Gerry says and Michael is in the hallway, but it hears him anyway.

“Yes?” It says quietly. It’s sitting on the ground, leaning into a mirror. It doesn’t know how long it’s been sitting here like this, but it’s been studying it’s own face for what feels like… Years. The surface of the mirror ripples like water-or maybe it’s Michael’s face that ripples. Either way, it’s become easier and easier to put on that nice little cardboard mask for Gerry’s sake. Michael’s getting better at it.

“I baked peanut butter cookies,” Gerry says. 

!! Peanut butter cookies! Red alert!! Of course, this triggers an all systems alarm in the halls and Michael leaps to its feet and now the mirror in front of it is a door and it yanks it open and practically tumbles into Gerry’s kitchen.

When Gerry turns around from where he was washing the dishes, he sees Michael spearing as many cookies as it can on its hands.

“Hey!!” He cries and rushes over to slap Michael with a dishtowel. “You put those down, they have to cool!” Michael dances away and giggles and crams its mouth full of cookies, dancing away. They’re too hot and Michael can feel it’s face turning red, but it doesn’t really feel the heat so much. Does it really have a mouth to burn?

“You made them _for_ me, though, I can eat them if I want!” Michael teases back, it’s mouth stuffed full, because it knows that Gerry _did_ make them for it. They’re Michael’s favorite-Or, they’re Michael Shelley’s favorite. Or, well, it likes them too. Maybe the distortion and Michael Shelley can just share this. Michael knows a gift when it sees one. 

“I made them to _share_ ,” Gerry says. “As in, for both of us.” As he speaks, the oven dings with another sheet full. He turns to take them out, pulling his oven mitts back on, but when he opens the door, he sees Michael has already opened _another_ door in the back of the oven and is stealing as many cookies as it can off the tray. It doesn’t feel the heat. Gerry yelps when he sees Michael’s face in the back and he snatches the tray away before Michael can get too far. “Get out of my oven!” He cries, but he’s laughing.

Gerry is leaning his elbows on the counter and watching Michael savor another cookie. He’s playing with his own, breaking it into pieces over his plate, his face unreadable. Michael stops for a second and watches him back, gulps down the rest of his cookie.

“So it’s not just doors,” Gerry finally says. “What else can you do?”

First instinct: make something up. Michael shakes it’s head hard, as if it can shake out the urge.

It’s just an urge, that’s all. It just sort of comes naturally to it to lie. But it chooses not to, not to Gerry.

“I don’t know,” it says truthfully. “I’m still… Experimenting.” It thinks about the memories it inherited. It remembers Michael Shelley walking through the halls, afraid. It remembers _before_ Michael Shelley, being others, and not being them. If it remembers being them, is it them, the people it was before? If it remembers being Michael Shelley, is it Michael Shelley? Can it ever have been Michael Shelley, when Michael Shelley never even knew who he was supposed to be in the first place? 

“I mean, I _know_ ,” the distortion continues vaguely. “What I can do. I’ve done it before, way before Michael Shelley. For a long time. But it’s still… New. To _me_.”

Gerry wraps his head around this and looks down and breaks his cookie down into further pieces. Black hair obscures his face, pretty and long. Michael wants to cup his cheeks.

“Did it hurt? In there?”

“I suppose so. At first. He was very disoriented, you know, Michael Shelley. But slowly, it became less painful. And then it became okay.”

“Oh.”

“He cried for you. A lot.”

“I cried for you, too.”

Gerry and Michael maintain eye contact for a long time and then, after a minute, Gerry breaks it and looks away.

“There’s some stuff we need to talk about.”

It stays silent. He crumbles his cookie in his hands.

“I think we’ve both been a little… Disoriented as of late. And I needed to… Clarify. I probably already know the answer to this but, um. Well. You’re. Not Michael. Right?”

“Right.”

“So… You’re not. My boyfriend anymore.”

Michael sits up straight, like it had been slapped. It didn’t know how to react right now. 

“Of course I’m your boyfriend,” it finally cries and inside it, it feels panic. “Unless. You’re breaking up with me?”

Gerry sits up too and the way he’s looking at Michael is… Conflicted. Michael doesn’t think it can read his expression. It sits there, in Gerry’s kitchen, gazing into his eyes, feeling so safe surrounded by him, and then suddenly all it can feel is panic.

“Well-” Gerry’s choking out. “I dunno, you tell me. My boyfriend is Michael. Are you Michael.”

The distortion does not know what to say. Gerry breaks eye contact again and runs one tattooed hand through his hair, letting out a long sigh. 

“I’m trying to figure this out,” he finally adds. “I don’t _know_ if I’m b-breaking up with you. I don’t know if we’re even together from the start. I agreed to date Michael Shelley, not the Spiral.”

The distortion jumps off it’s stool, it’s eyes on Gerry. It doesn’t have any insides right now-all it has is pain.

“Hold on, hold on!” Gerry is crying and he reaches after it. “That’s not, that came out wrong, that’s not what I meant. I just mean, I mean, I’m trying to, I want to figure this out.”

“What is there to figure out,” the distortion says. It’s mouth doesn’t move-it doesn’t have the strength to speak-but the words manifest somehow anyway. “It sounds like you’ve made your choice.”

“Would you sit down,” Gerry says, his voice edging into angry panic. “I’m trying to have a conversation with you, don’t go getting all, all weird. If you’re not Michael, then-”

“You could have told me you didn’t want me around from the beginning,” the distortion says. It moves it’s mouth this time. It thinks. Does it have a mouth anymore? It’s form is starting to slip-it can tell by the way Gerry looks away and starts to rub his temples.

“Calm down,” he says. “Or you’re going to make me sick.”

“I hope I do,” the distortion says furiously and immediately regrets it.

“Michael!” Gerry cries and when he looks back over at the distortion, he looks actually… What is it, what is this expression on his face. Michael has never seen it before directed at him. He wants to shrivel up. Gerry looks… disgusted. “I’m not trying to antagonize you, you asshole, I’m trying to figure out our relationship-it’s a conversation we _need_ to have!”

“And I told you, we’re boyfriends,” the distortion insists. The walls behind Gerry are starting to swirl like paint being mixed together. Gerry slaps the bed and jumps to his feet as well.

“STOP moving things around!” He cries. “This is childish and you’re making me dizzy!”

The distortion genuinely tries to stop the room from spinning, stop it’s contents losing form, but it _is_ difficult. 

“And it is _not_ as simple as that. I don’t _know_ who you are and you insist that you’re not who I think you are. I’m trying to respect what you’re telling me here-if you say you’re a completely different person, then so be it, but in that case I don’t _know_ you!”

“You know who I am.” This comes out more pitiful than Michael wanted it to.

“You won’t even tell me your name!” Gerry pleads. “I’ve been generous with you, hell knows I’m trying, but the more I look at you, the more I see that’s not the same as him.” Michael staggers back a step.

Whatever anger Michael had had before is draining away in favor of desperation. The situation is slipping through it’s fingers and fast. It’s trying to _stop_ Gerry from breaking up with it, not push him away. It tries harder to keep the room steady, to look human, but a million thoughts are flashing through its head, a million emotion are turning it’s insides into (literal) goo, and it just can’t follow everything. It’s losing control.

“What do you not like, Gerry,” Michael manages to choke out. “I’ll change it. I’ll be better. I’ll be more the same, I’ll be like Michael.”

“Don’t pretend like you can,” Gerry says, his face softening and he looks away for a second. His anger is draining, the distortion can see it on his face, and it thinks maybe the fight will be over, maybe Gerry is going to change his mind. This isn’t what happens. “I don’t… Know how much of you is left. Or if I’m being lied to by something pretending to be you to hurt me. Or maybe you are you, but you’ve changed so much that you’re… You’re just not the person I knew, I don’t know. What I _do_ know is that… I’m confused. And I’ve been mourning you for weeks now.”

“You’re the _only_ one who knows who I am,” the distortion continues weakly. “You’re the only one who knows me.”

“I don’t think that’s true anymore,” Gerry says. His face is still turned away, hidden by a curtain of hair. Michael realizes that it’s crying. Blue glitter falls down it’s cheeks and it’s throat feels thick. The walls are dripping now. Everything is turning into heavy black sludge around them. Michael can feel it suction at its feet like mud. “At first, I was almost certain I knew you. You look like him, you sound like him, you act like him. You’re Michael, you’re him. It wasn’t even a question to me. Except you kept telling me different and-” He stops, like there’s more but he doesn’t want to speak it outloud.

“And what??” Michael says.

Gerry is quiet.

“Please,” Michael says quietly. “Please tell me what I’m doing wrong.”

Gerry shakes his head, like he can’t bring himself to speak.

They stand there in silence for a long time.

“Gerard, tell me what I’m doing wrong!” Michael finally demands.

“I know about Sandra Dalton,” Gerry says, whispers really, and Michael’s blood-well, whatever it has instead of blood-turns ice cold. It’s mouth gapes open for a second like a fish as it tries to come up with something to say, anything to make this not be happening. “Gordon A Wallace. Tylor Bonnie. You dodged the question the other day,” Gerry continues. He looks up. The distortion takes a step back. It has to trudge through ankle deep sludge. “About how avatars stay alive. Your answer was telling, I’m not dumb, but I thought… I thought… I don’t know what I thought, I could ignore it? I could pretend it wasn’t happening? It’s such a _miracle_ to have your dead boyfriend back, I thought I could overlook anything just to have you. But then I heard of a woman who disappeared on the street the other day, and what do you know, it sounded kind of like the Spiral’s doing!” Gerry’s starting to sound mad.

Rivers run down the distortion’s face with no end in sight. Gerry takes a step forward. It takes another step back. The walls are spinning harder now. Everything is spinning harder. The whole room has been reduced to black goo, running over everything. Funny Gerry hasn’t mentioned that bit yet, how Michael’s ruined his entire kitchen.

“I saw her picture. I looked at her face. The person you _killed_ . The _person_ you _ate_.”

It felt so nice at the time, the distortion thinks weakly.

“My Michael Shelley would never say that,” Gerard cries, distraught, and the distortion realizes it spoke that outloud. “My Michael Shelley wouldn’t _kill and eat_ an innocent person!” He scoffs. “And then I kept digging. I found three other people-three-who sounded like Spiral cases after the date you showed up at my door.” Gerry’s face turns pleading for a second. “Michael, tell me that wasn’t you. Tell me all of this wasn’t you.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“And don’t LIE to me!!”

The distortion remains silent.

Gerry shakes his head and then chokes on tears. He puts one arm around his waist and the other cupped around his mouth and then heaves a sob. They stand there for a second while Gerry cries and rivers pool at the distortion’s feet.

“I’m going to be sick,” Gerry finally manages spitefully through his tears. “Fix the room and get out.”

So the distortion does.

In a frenzy, it eats two whole more people and terrorizes another three and it feels like shit about it so it rips it’s halls to shreds and puts them back together and it rips it’s skin off and tears it’s hair out and cuts out all it’s innards and breaks mirrors and tears out the rug and it floods the hallways with rivers.

  
  
  
  
  
  


Human Michael Shelley has been in the halls for days now. It feels longer. He almost never stops walking.

He followed the map to the center, of course, but he can’t remember exactly what happened after that. And he doesn’t have the map on him anymore. He doesn’t know where it went. And he’s feeling a little disoriented.

He can’t find his coat either. Once he finally gets out of here to wherever Gertrude is totally waiting for him, he’ll freeze on the way back to the airport, so he tries to look for it.

The walls are green and the rug is green and there’s mirrors on the walls, and pictures. They’re pictures of him? He thinks, at least. They’re all blurry, undefined, like stalker candids from behind a bush. Just the shape of his hair. A fuzzy image of what’s probably his face. The silhouette of his body in his coat. He doesn’t study them too much.

The mirrors pull him out of proportion. His limbs are all wrong in one, but they look fine when he looks down at himself. He looks almost sharp in another, dangerous and off putting and pointy, but what he sees outside of the mirrors seems normal.

He hears voices sometimes, just out of reach, muttering angrily just too quiet for him to hear. They scare him. 

He can hear the voice, back again, speaking just too softly to be heard, angry. It’s somewhere ahead of him. He turns on heel and begins to walk quickly in the opposite direction.

The voice grows louder. It’s following him. Michael’s stomach turns and tears prick at his eyes. He refuses to look behind. He walks faster. The voice grows louder. Angrier. And soon, despite the fact that Michael is almost running, that he’s taken so many turns, he can start to make out the words.

“What do you even have to hold onto?” It’s saying. “Gertrude is _gone_. She left you to die. Quit lying to yourself.” Michael is trembling. He keeps walking. The voice keeps pace, growing steadily louder. What is behind him? “Gerry doesn’t know you’re here, and besides, no one would be dumb enough to come in after you to save you, not even him.” Michael is crying. It’s hands shake. “You’re not even a person,” the voice grows. “You don’t even have a name.” Oh, now that the voice is so close, it sounds so familiar. Michael turns another corner and finds a dead end and it freezes in front of it, still shaking so hard it can barely see straight. 

It’s _his_ voice.

He doesn’t know what he’ll see when he turns around, but he forces himself to, because there’s no other way to go. He turns.

There’s a person on the ground in front of him. _He_ is on the ground in front of him. It’s himself. Blonde curls on his shoulders, long sleeve thermal t-shirt, eyes red from tears. He’s pressed up against the wall behind him (had the hallway switched? There didn’t used to be a dead end _behind_ Michael) and he’s got one hand out, like he’s trying to keep Michael at arms length.

“Please go away,” he weeps, barely audible through his tears. “Please! Don’t hurt me!”

Well Michael just doesn’t know what to make of this and something about it is making him feel sick and he thinks his brain is starting to twist into a pretzel shape and he whirls around, eyes wide and unblinking with shock, to find the hallway stretches in front of him again, and he leaves his double behind, walking fast. He can’t think. There are no words, just the command from his head to his feet to get _out_ . He’s full body shuddering. This is _wrong_.

“You’re not me,” Other Michael is crying to himself. “You’re not me, you’re not me, you’re not me.”

Michael takes the closest turn and keeps walking and he walks until he can’t hear it anymore and then he starts to cry again.

“That wasn’t me,” he says to himself, his arms tight around his body. “ _I’m_ me. It’s a trick. _I’m_ me. Me, I’m me. Not that. That wasn’t, that’s not me.”

“What are you?” His own voice answers. He doesn’t think _he_ said it.

“I don’t know,” Michael says and claps a hand over his own mouth to choke down his tears. He doubles over.

“What’s your name?!” His voice asks, desperate.

“I don’t know,” Michael barely chokes out. He’s coming down to his knees.

In front of him is another mirror and in it, he’s pressing his body to it and pounding his fist on the glass, and screaming.

“Who are you, who are you, who are you!!” Mirror Michael screams shrilly and Michael leans over his knees and cries loudly. The walls around it shudder.

  
  
  
  


Gerry knows how to find it if he needs it. If Gerry ever calls out for it, the distortion will be listening. But until then, he’s made his feelings clear. So the distortion keeps its distance and tries to keep living without him.

Frankly, it doesn’t know how, but it has to make do.

Identity is a puzzle it all but drops. It doesn’t know what it is or what it’s not, but without Gerry around, it doesn’t have to care. He was the only person that made having an identity relevant in the first place. After all, on its own, the distortion can just exist-or, well, not exist. Or somewhere in between. And it doesn’t have to know whether it’s existing or not because there’s no one around to explain itself to, no one around to Perform Michael Shelley for. So it lives and it takes what it needs and it tries not to think about anything at all. And for the most part, it succeeds.

Sometimes, it talks to the people it traps before it’s finished with them. It snagged a therapist once and got a few odd sessions out of him before he succumbed to the Spiral. It’s gotten a handful of people to sit down and listen to it and most of them told it that _it_ was in the wrong, which it didn’t like to hear, so it ate them faster, but a few said that Gerry was wrong and he didn’t deserve the distortion, which was validating but also not true, so it ate them faster, too. 

And time just passed this way. It can’t be sure how much, but time. It passed.

And then one day, Gerry stepped _inside_.

It knew in a second, of course. It had been picking paint off the walls with a fingernail, lying on the floor, bored, when a door opened somewhere and the most familiar presence in the world ducked inside and slammed the door behind him. And the distortion was up and at his side in a second.

It races down the halls, taking corners at rocket speed, and then it rounds one more corner and _sees him_. It picks up speed, it’s hands outstretched, person form only half on in it’s haste, eyes brimming with tears, when Gerry throws himself up against the door again and throws his arms up as if in defence. The distortion grinds to a halt-complete with tire squealing noises. It can’t control the sound effects sometimes. It’s got a lot of emotions going off like fireworks. In fact, are there fireworks somewhere? It can hear them, fireworks going off down the hall somewhere. People cheering. A triumphant brass band starting to play. The air tastes like sugar and the lights on the walls brighten.

“Gerry,” it breathes in delight. It won’t come closer because clearly Gerry doesn’t want it to, and it’s running hug has been rejected, but this won’t destroy it’s hope. “Gerry, Gerry-” Okay, it takes one small step closer, but just one. 

Gerry puts his arms down and straightens up a little. He looks afraid.

“Stop right there,” he instructs. And that’s when the distortion notices his skin. He’s been burned, and _badly._ He’s wearing long sleeves, but the distortion can see his hands and wrists are red and tight with severe scarring.

“Gerry,” is all it can manage again.

“Tell me one thing,” Gerry says, his eyes hard. “Are you going to let me leave here.”

“I never want you to leave, never again!” The distortion cries in earnest. Fireworks are still going off somewhere. It steps forward again and reaches for Gerry’s face and he turns away abruptly. The distortion pulls back. “But, but you can. If you want.”

There’s a loud click and Gerry looks down at the doorknob behind him.

“It’s always open,” the distortion says. “For you.”

Gerry looks from Michael back down to the doorknob and up again and then, like he has decided that this is good enough, he heaves a shaking sigh and slides down the door to the ground gingerly.

Miche-the distortion follows Gerry to the ground. It can’t take it’s eyes off of him.

They stare at each other for a few minutes.

“I _missed_ you,” the distortion whispers. “So much.”

“I missed you too,” Gerry says, seemingly before he realizes that he has. He scowls. “I’ve been missing you,” he finally adds, losing his resolve, breaking eye contact. 

The distortion reaches out very, very slowly and Gerry lets it take his hand. It’s claws leave the faintest of imprints on the warped skin there and the distortion scoots closer and turns his hand over and over it it’s own, as gently as possible, careful not to cut him.

“It was the lightless flame,” the distortion says, a frown twisting its mouth.

“Course it was,” Gerry says.

“How bad is it?”

Gerry hesitates and then scowls again. He was jaded before, but he seems more so now.

“Why do you want to know?” He says. “I don’t even know who’s asking.”

The distortion gently hands Gerry his hand back.

“Was something chasing you back there?”

“I get chased by a lot of shit.”

“You can always come to me for help, you know.”

Gerry is silent this time.

“Will you let me show you around?”

Gerry thinks on this and then, he nods.

Michael helps him up and Gerry climbs to his feet gingerly.

The burns don’t seem _brand_ new, but they sure aren’t old, and his skin is tight and painful and stiff. He’s not moving quickly. Michael lets him walk at his own pace.

“This is the wallpaper,” Michael says as they walk. “And this is the mirrors.”

“You’ve hung some self portraits,” Gerry says and flicks the frame of one fuzzy photo of Michael as they pass.

“They hang themselves,” Michael says dismissively.

They walk for a few minutes and Michael tries to point out new things in the identical hallways, always keeping a door within view for Gerry to not feel like he’s being lead into somewhere he can’t return from, and when it becomes obvious that Gerry’s too tired and weak to walk much further, Michael throws open a new door and behind it is a room it made just now, a place with a big bed and a cozy rug and warm lights and there’s soft music in the background, something soothing.

“You can lay down,” Michael suggests gently. It guides Gerry towards the bed and helps him up onto it. Gerry pats the sheets for a second, disoriented, and then pushes his finger into it. He brings it back covered in frosting and cake.

“This is fondant,” he says. “This is a giant cake. But it… Looks like a bed.”

“Oh,” the distortion says and it pushes it’s finger into the cake too, just to check. He’s right. “I’m sorry,” it says. “I thought…”

“It’s fine,” Gerry says and he laughs a little and when he laughs, Michael laughs, until both of them are laughing, faces red, sides cramping. Michael crawls up onto the bed, the cake, with Gerry, and curls up on top of the dry fondant next to him. Gerry lies down beside it.

For a long time, they stare into each other’s faces and search for the past.

“You don’t get it,” the distortion says quietly, when it looks like Gerry is about to fall asleep. “What it’s like.”

“I don’t.”

“You’ve never changed. You’ve always been just… Gerry.”

“I have.”

“You’ve been on the same journey your whole life. And you never questioned it.” 

Gerry rolls over now and looks at the ceiling. The cake gives under his weight just barely.

“You never had something… Something come along out of nowhere and just steamroll you. Nothing that just _changes_ you. Because you’ve been on the same side the whole time. You’ve always known what you wanted. You never had something so disastrous happen to you that you had to stop and-and wonder if you were still yourself after it. Or if you were something worse.”

Gerry looks back now and his eyes are glassy with tears.

“Is that how you feel, Michael?” He says and now it’s Michael’s turn to look away. It reaches up with its ruined hand, like it’s trying to reach something, and examines its clawed fingers. It giggles a little, which feels right.

“Something so bad happens to you,” Michael continues in a quiet voice. “That it’d be better if you’d died. Become something you hate so much, you wish you were dead.”

“Stop,” Gerry’s saying. “Stop it, Michael, stop.”

Michael does stop and it looks over and Gerry reaches over and lays one scarred hand on Michael’s bare arm and then he’s rolling over on top of Michael, straddling it’s chest, slowly, so so slowly, and then he leans in and Michael is holding still, so so still, and their faces are just seconds apart. Michael can feel the heat of him, can feel his breath on its face, can feel the tip of his nose brush it, and its heart is suddenly thudding audibly loudly, like a cartoon. In the distance the triumphant music, slow, [Ode to Joy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=on7brn9B2FE#t=1m41s) swelling and building, and then Gerry brushes his lips against Michael’s for the first time since he died. Fireworks go off above them in the room, explosions and lights. Ode to Joy’s refrain bellows and Michael lets out a choked sob and then it leans up and catches Gerry’s mouth again and closes its eyes. Its hands hover shakily over his cheeks and his chest and his shoulders, wanting to touch everything, unable to believe this is real. Gerry is wrapping up Michael’s torso and hauling it up towards him, pressing their bodies together. Michael can feel his fingers lose themselves in it’s hair and it wants to crack open its chest and pour the runny yolk of its heart all over the floor.

Gerry is pressing desperate kisses to his mouth and the corner of his lips and his cheeks, his eyes, his neck, and when he collapses a little from exhaustion, Michael rolls them over again so Gerry is on his back and Michael is straddling _him_ instead.

He undoes Gerry’s coat and then his shirt and then cuts through his undershirt with his hands (gently) and falls on the scars there to kiss and explore while Gerry’s hands make their way through his hair. The music is all they can hear and the lights above paint them both in rotating shades of pink and red and white and blue and yellow and when Gerry takes his face and kisses him again on the mouth, tugging at the zipper on his winter coat, Michael realizes it hasn’t felt so happy since the last time Gerry kissed him.

  
  
  


Here’s the catch. Because there’s always a catch.

Gerry falls asleep on the cake bed eventually and the distortion watches him sleep for a long time and then, for old times sake, it pretends to sleep too. It curls up with him and fits itself into the crook of his arm, its winter coat a barrier between them so the distortion won’t forget itself and cut Gerry on accident, and then it closes its eyes and pretends nothing bad ever happened to either of them, pretends it’s still Michael, that it’s a person, that everything has always been okay.

And it lies there for a long time with him and listens to him breathe.

When he wakes up, the distortion pretends it’s still asleep because it wants to feel normal, it wants to feel like a person with a loving, person boyfriend, that is looked at lovingly while it sleeps and is coddled over.

This does not quite happen.

Gerry shifts up and lays Michael back onto the bed, untangles his arm from underneath it, and then, Michael can hear him rustling around with his previously cast off trench coat on the floor and then a minute later, something cold and metal is pressed to Michael’s forehead. There’s an unmistakable click sound. This isn’t what it expected. 

It’s eyes fly open to look directly down the barrel of a gun.

It scrambles, knife hands flying, leaving giant slices through the fondant below it, and then it hits the ground.

On the other side of the gun, Gerry is stifling tears and when the distortion looks up at him from the floor, eyes wide in terror, it’s breaking heart obvious on its face, he drops his aim and chokes.

The distortion doesn’t know what to say. It’s got a lot of power, especially here, and to anyone else, it might laugh. It would certainly kill anyone else. It wouldn’t let them pin it on the floor on the wrong end of a gun, looking pitiful-it would twist their mind until it snapped in half and it would probably have a great time doing it. In fact, a gun probably wouldn’t even kill it! But when it’s looking at Gerry, it’s not _just_ the distortion, and it has no power in front of him. Gerry has the distortion’s heart and soul in his burned hands. So the distortion lays on the floor and lets him threaten it’s life.

Gerry’s pointing the gun at the ground now and smearing tears around his face with his free hand, looking absolutely dissolved.

“I can’t-” he chokes and then he turns around and speeds out of the room.

For a minute, on instinct, the distortion hides the exit. It can feel Gerry pacing the halls, panicked and weeping, and it’s emotions are ammonia and bleach in its chest. For that minute, it feels blinding rage. It wants to trap Gerry and make him regret this. But it only feels that for a minute and then it remembers it’s promise (it’s always open. For you.) and it’s anger melts into sadness and the next turn Gerry takes, the door is there. Open.

He bolts out and the distortion kneels on the floor and buries its face in its hands and falls apart into sharp, glass pieces all over the floor.

  
  
  


A hunter is after Gerry now, a large man with angry eyes. The distortion doesn’t know if Gerry knows it’s on his tail, if Gerry had time to notice the doors, but it doesn’t matter. It catches them on the street at night during a chase, drops down out of the shadows and directly on top of the hunter man and spears him through the face with its hands, ruining his angry eyes, crouched over his body, and then it turns over its shoulder to see Gerry.

They’re in some alley and it’s dark. Blood is pooling into the distortion’s heavy snow boots. Behind it, Gerry has stopped and is staring, his eyes wide. But he’s not running.

It’s been three months since the gun incident.

The distortion turns back to the hunter and slowly pulls its hands out of his face and then wipes the blood off on his clothes. It’s fingers are long, jointed in strange places, ending in sharpened points. It doesn’t bother hiding them right now.

It pulls itself to its feet and turns around to face Gerry completely now.

They stare at each other for a while until the distortion can’t take the silence anymore and it looks away and starts to laugh uncomfortably. Before too long, it’s laughing hard, unable to look at Gerry’s face without feeling sinking despair, unable to handle the tension of the situation without giggling through it.

Gerry doesn’t laugh with it.

Gerry has cuts-big cuts-gashes, really, across his stomach and wordlessly, the distortion helps him out of his shirt and begins taking care of it. Gerry protests a few times, but the distortion can’t find anything inside it to respond and when Gerry realizes it’s not going to talk to him and it’s not going to let him walk away, he gives up. 

It doesn’t sew so well with its hands the way they are. It’s hand eye coordination has improved since it was first Spiralled, but it’s hard to be graceful with that many joints. But it still wants to help. And it can take the pain away for him. It can make the concrete beneath him in the alley soft. It can bring the skin on his chest back together. Gentle.

“Used to be me,” Gerry said. “Being _your_ white knight.”

You’re not the savior here, the words echo in the distortion’s head. You’re supposed to be the damsel in distress, that’s your role in this relationship. 

Except, no, that was Michael Shelley’s role. It’s not Michael. 

Besides, no roles fit it now. It doesn’t _fit_ in relationships, it doesn’t _have_ roles. It’s whole purpose is to break stuff like that, isn’t it? Role-less. Self-less. 

“That was Michael,” the distortion finally says in a voice that could be described as gentle, but with a facial expression that could not. “Not me.” This is a surprisingly coherent response, it realizes and pats itself on the back. It’s the first thing it’s said to him since the gun incident.

“Do you want me… Dead,” Gerry asks after another minute. He’s high on Spiral-brand painkillers. He’s seeing kaleidoscopes.

The distortion doesn’t want to justify this comment with a response and instead it laughs again and stabs him hard with the sewing needling. Gerry grunts and falls quiet.

It finishes and stands and Gerry looks up at it from where it’s lying on the concrete and he smiles despite himself. The distortion cocks its head and smiles too, but it’s not a nice smile. It kind of wants to kick him right in the gut, right in the stitches.

“You’re Michael,” Gerry says. He sounds out of it, breathless. His irises swim inside his eyes. “You’re Michael, you were always Michael.” He starts to cry. “This is just what happened to you.”

“I’m not.”

“You never got to choose your own name,” Gerry cries, like the distortion never even responded. “You never got to. You never got to find yourself. It’s not fair.”

The distortion stands back and watches Gerry.

“It came for you right when you were the most vulnerable, when you felt the least human, and it took advantage of that. I’m sorry this happened to you. You were always so scared of the Spiral, it always followed you, it was waiting for you-”

The distortion puts a heavy snow boot on Gerry’s fresh stitches and presses down. Not hard. A warning.

Gerry stops and chokes as the air leaves him.

The distortion takes it’s boot back.

It doesn’t have anything else to say, so it leaves.

  
  
  


Human Michael Shelley isn’t sure what he is and it’s maddening.

The sight of his own body is alienating. Seeing his face in the mirrors is an exercise in misery. He doesn’t know who he’s looking at. He doesn’t recognize them. It’s the strangest thing. Of course, he knows the person in the mirror is Michael-himself. But it’s almost like he expects to see something different. He doesn’t think of himself as the body he sees in the mirror. It is entirely divorced from him.

He’s tried on other names, other identities in his head, tasting them. He doesn’t think any of them work, at least not so far. Who knew you could lose yourself, could become unmoored. Were you a person if you couldn’t define yourself?

The distortion thinks about this more than it wants to admit.

“Michael,” Gerry says a week after the hunter incident. The distortion listens. “Can I come in, please?”

Gerry is in London right now, and the distortion is in the hall. It leaves a door open behind Gerry and lets Gerry find it, lets him step inside.

When Gerry closes the door behind him, he finds himself in the hall with Michael. It’s sitting on the floor, legs crossed, holding one of the framed pictures of itself, examining it next to its reflection in front of a mirror. 

Gerry watches Michael from the other side of the room and Michael makes lazy eye contact with him through the mirror. They stay this way for a few minutes. Quietly in the background, Michael puts on some mood music-a deeply threatening sounding opera piece. It’s [Habanera from Carmen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSsNFPk2vNA), that classic ba dum dum dum piece that it’d seen jaded lovers dance tango to with angry faces in black and white movies. Seems appropriate. The hallways are nothing if not thematically atmospheric.

Gerry clears his throat.

“Thank you,” he says. “For sewing me up.”

Michael returns its gaze back to its own face in the mirror. It doesn’t know what to say. Of _course_ it sewed him up, it loves him. Or is that not obvious. 

“There weren’t so many mirrors in here until Michael Shelley,” it comments quietly and pokes at its own face. “He brought them in here with him. I don’t want them here anymore.”

Gerry approaches gingerly. Michael lets him.

“I’ve been thinking about you,” Gerry says and Michael whirls around now, it’s palms flat on the rug.

“Hey!!” It accuses. “ _Now_ who’s the one making disjointed conversation?”

“It’s not disjointed, that’s what I came here to say,” Gerry says. The distortion pouts.

“Nothing I say is disjointed either. I say exactly what I mean to you, too.” It turns back around.

“I like the things you have to say to me,” Gerry says. He takes another step in the distortion’s direction. “I miss when you _had_ things to say to me.”

“I think _you_ need a mirror, Gerard Keay,” Michael accuses, watching itself spring it’s own curls with a finger. “You forgot your own decision about me. You’re wishy washy.”

“I just changed my mind,” Gerry says.

“Well I’m starting to get sick of you changing your mind.”

“I’ve decided you are Michael.”

“I didn’t know that was your decision to make.”

This gives Gerry some pause.

“Okay, fair,” he backpedals. “I guess what I really mean is… I left you when you needed me. I turned on you. I’m sorry.”

Michael can taste this apology, like it’s some sort of snack, in the back of its mouth. It's sour. The lights in the hall darken a little and Gerry starts.

“Maybe I’ll just eat you,” Michael says casually and it’s standing now. (There was no transition in between sitting and standing, it doesn’t have the patience. It’s just standing now, that’s all.) It reaches forward and unhooks the mirror from the wall and places it on the ground. Behind them both, the door Gerry used to come in clicks. Locked.

Michael can feel Gerry’s fear. He’s nervous, especially because of how Michael is acting. He’s trying desperately to stifle his fear. Fine, Michael thinks. Everyone gets scared eventually. Just wait for it, Gerard Keay.

Michael stomps on the mirror on the ground with its snowboot. The mirror shatters. It does it again. The mirror shatters further. It’s not stomping with any sort of rage behind it, it’s just going through the motions. Lazily breaking a mirror.

When it’s finished, it reaches down and plucks out a nice looking shard of mirror and takes it over to Gerry, twisting it in its horrible fingers.

“That’s fine,” Gerry finally chokes out. “But I don’t think you mean it.”

“Mean what.”

“That you’ll eat me. You’re bluffing.”

“Ha!”

“I trust you, Michael.”

“I trusted _you_ , Gerry.”

Gerry looks away, shame in his face.

“Why would you save me in the alley just to eat me now?”

“I do a lot of things that don’t make sense. Besides, is it so hard to imagine that I’d want to save you in order to eat you myself later? You’ve given me plenty of reasons to want to.”

When Gerry looks up, Michael is made out of glass mirror shards and Gerry’s eyes widen. Michael grins angrily with glass shard teeth and takes Gerry’s hand with broken glass fingers. Gerry gasps in shock and pain as some of the pieces slide right into his skin. Then, Michael wraps it’s other sharp glass arm around Gerry’s middle and pulls him in. The tango opera music grows louder and realization dawns on Gerry’s face.

“Oh, Michael, no,” he pleads. 

“Too late,” Michael says with a sharp glass mouth.

“This _was_ scary, but now it’s just kinda weird,” Gerry continues desperately.

“It’s happening,” Michael says.

“I don’t know how to dance, Michael!!” Gerry cries but when Michael yanks him along, he follows.

The hallways are a dramatically lit stage now, and Michael’s thick winter coat is bright red and Gerry’s black band tshirt is a smart collared button down. Except all of these things were always this way and there was no transition period, it just was.

“I hate this, I hate this, I hate this,” Gerry says as they spin around the stage. Michael squeezes his hand harder and he gasps in pain.

They spin around the stage and at one point, Michael prompts Gerry to dip it and when he pulls it back up, it leans in and kisses his cheek very, very gently. There’s only a little blood by the time it pulls away and they keep making their way across the stage.

“What is this for, Michael?” Gerry finally asks. 

“I’m enjoying you one last time before I kill you,” Michael says.

“That’s a lie.”

“Fine. I’m not enjoying you. I’m tormenting you.”

“You’re stalling, that’s what you’re doing.”

Michael spins Gerry and Gerry goes for it clumsily and comes back in.

“Can I at least tell you I’m sorry.”

“You can.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What changed your mind about me?”

It’s nice, dancing so close together. Michael inches closer to Gerry and tries to savor the familiar scent of him. It hates how much it loves him, hates how much it cherishes him. It’s not sure if Gerry is cherishing _it_. He mostly seems nervous with so much broken glass so close to his face.

“I was conflicted,” Gerry admits. “My Michael wouldn’t eat people-unless, maybe, what if he had to? And my Michael laughs the same, likes the same peanut butter cookies. And I missed you like I missed him. I wasn’t missing two separate people, I was missing _you_. Seemed kinda dumb then to keep thinking the way I was.” He pauses. “But it’s not just that.” Michael watches Gerry’s face. Gerry’s eyes are on their feet as they swirl, but Michael’s not entirely convinced that it’s only because he’s clumsy. “My Michael would save me, even if I betrayed him. Even if I pointed a gun at him. He’d save me. If you were just some anonymous monster, you wouldn’t do that.”

Dammit, Michael thinks. Foiled.

They spin a little while longer and Michael doesn’t answer, but slowly, it drops glass shards across the stage, leaving behind a normal face.

“Don’t let anyone say you don’t have a theatrical streak,” Gerry grumbles as they leave behind another large shard of glass and once it’s entire face is revealed, Gerry smiles at it gently. “There you are,” he says. Michael’s flesh and blood hand in Gerry’s is slick with his blood.

“I’m bored of the glass, that’s all.”

“Yes,” Gerry agrees. “That’s all.”

The music changes and Michael puts on something a little softer, a little familiar, a gentler rendition of [Ode to Joy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w08birvahc#t=0m11s) from last time, a hesitant rendition, and brings itself gingerly closer to Gerry.

“I’m not Michael.”

“Okay. Do you accept my apology? You can say no.”

“Mm.”

“I figure after you point a gun at your boyfriend, you kill any love he had for you, huh?”

“I’m not your boyfriend.”

Gerry’s looking more and more distressed by the minute.

“Oh,” he says. Michael bites it’s lip with sharp teeth and avoids Gerry’s face. This conversation is feeling familiar. It wishes it had any courage, any at all.

“I’m not your girlfriend either. I’m something different from both of those.”

Gerry is quiet for a minute and Michael can feel him studying its face. Michael is choking on knots in its throat, choking on glass in its throat, waiting for him to respond.

“Partner?” Gerry says hopefully. Michael feels like it’s taken a breath of air for the first time in a year.

“Partner,” it agrees, but it can’t relax completely just yet.

“So I… I didn’t? Kill your love?”

“Do you not care? That I was never-”

“What, the whole gender thing? Wha-no, Michael.”

“I’ve always been this way-Michael Shelley had always been this way. Since before the Spiral. Since always.”

“I know, I know, that’s okay.”

“Even when I was human, I-he-he was never. Not quite human even then.”

“Don’t SAY that, Michael,” Gerry cries and slaps its arm. “Don’t say that.” They’re rocking in small circles now to the soft music. They’re not on a stage anymore, they’re in a high school gym, and the lights are low, and there’s old prom decorations littering the floor and no one around because they’ve all gone home and it’s just Michael and Gerry left, Michael in a plain old prom dress and Gerry in a suit, swaying. And Michael is even closer to Gerry now, could put its face in his hair if it wanted, and it does. Could rest it’s face on his shoulder, if it bends over far enough, and it wants to. 

“You don’t care?”

“I don’t! Gerry exclaims. “I _do_ care about if you can ever forgive me, if we can ever be. Partners again.”

Michael feels some sort of weight lift off of it. It blinks in shock now that the stress is gone, like it hadn’t even realized how heavy it was in the first place, and tears fill it’s eyes.

“Oh, geez,” Gerry cries. “Oh, wait, hold on-” they stop dancing as Michael buckles over, trying to catch its breath. The world around them pulls at the seams and Michael loses all form for a solid minute. “What did I do, what did I say? Are you okay?!”

Gerry fusses frantically while Michael tries to pull itself together and when it finally can, tears running down its face, it stands up and envelopes Gerry in the tightest hug it can give. Gerry, confused, hugs back, and Michael brings them both to their knees and then it takes Gerry’s face and kisses his mouth desperately.

“That’s all I wanted,” it weeps as it kisses Gerry’s face. “That’s all he ever wanted.”

“What, wanted what!” 

“I thought you’d never have me! Like I am! I didn’t think you’d accept-”

“Wha-Michael-”

“Of course I forgive you, of course I do, I love you. I love you!!”

  
  
  


Michael eats the pizza and drinks the wine Gerry bought, not because it needs to, but because it likes to, and Gerry lays in it’s lap, reaching up to play with the coils in it’s hair, a little drunk, his cheeks pink. 

“I dunno,” Gerry is arguing. “I think we should just drop the whole Keay part all together and do Shelley-Delano.”

“If that’s what you want,” Michael says, just smidgen preoccupied with holding Gerry’s hand and playing with his fingers-it has to make sure its hand is not overly uncomfortable to hold.

“What do _you_ want.”

“Mmm. Michael Delano. Michael Shelley-Delano. Michael Delano-Shelley,” it muses thoughtfully. “Gerry Shelley-oo that one doesn’t work, huh.” Gerry protests and Michael goes on, talking over him. “Gerry Shelley-Delano. A little bit more of a ring to it. OO!!” Michael sits up fast, nearly throwing Gerry off of it on accident. “Shellano!!”

Gerry snorts and Michael laughs for a long time.

“Excuse me, Mx Shellano!” Gerry cries, pretending to be offended. “That’s me and my partner’s _name_ you’re laughing at!”

“Oh, I’m so sorry Mr Shellano, excuse me,” Michael can’t help but giggle through the joke.

“Mx Delaney?” Gerry tries and Michael couldn’t wipe the smile off it’s face if it tried.

“There’s a little more potential there, mm,” it says. “How do you feel about it, Mr Delaney?”

“I feel like,” Mr Delaney says and he sits up dizzily and picks up his glass of wine and throws it back like a shot-nothing if not gentlemanly. “We ought to tell everyone in town a different name and go by them all and see which one we like best that way.”

Michael can’t tell if this is a joke because the chaos of the idea sounds so appealing that it’s already decided that’s what it’s going to do anyway.

“That’s a fabulous idea,” it says and as it’s talking, Gerry yawns. “Tired?” It asks.

“Make me a bed out of cake again,” Gerry demands sleepily.

“Okay,” Michael says quietly, smiling, and it scoops Gerry up and holds him close and carries him through the threshold of a permanent yellow door in the wall.

  
  



End file.
